The Midbloom Journal
field notes
Real projects, design decisions, and observations from shops and spaces in progress.
Field Notes
From Wishlist to Spatial Strategy: Inside the ONEOFEACH Storefront Discovery
Tamburai had no shortage of ideas for the ONEOFEACH storefront. Our discovery work turned that wishlist into a clear brief for the shop’s next chapter.
By the time Tamburai Chirume decided to stay in the ONEOFEACH space beyond the original pop-up, she wasn't short on ideas. She had a list: more seating, complimentary drinks, a projection wall, workshops, and an exhibition with an artist from South Africa. What she didn't have was a way to turn that list into a plan.
ONEOFEACH is a mother-and-daughter brand built on craftsmanship, cultural connection, and story, made real through leather, textiles, and beadwork. Tamburai founded it with her mother, Pauline Munemo, known as Mama P, in 2014, working from leather offcuts and fabrics Mama P had collected over the years. Their roots are Zimbabwean, and in Southern African culture, fabric carries meaning beyond its practical use. It is gifted between the women in a family to mark relationships and milestones, and many of the first pieces ONEOFEACH worked with had come to Mama P that way.
Because the leather and fabrics existed only in small, specific quantities, most combinations could be made once. One of each. Over time, the name came to mean more than the materials. It grew to describe the individuality of everyone connected to the brand: the designers, makers, customers, and collaborators, including the Indian beadworkers ONEOFEACH partners with on some pieces. These collaborations bring together two craft traditions grounded in handwork, generational knowledge, and the use of textiles to express identity and belonging.
According to ONEOFEACH, 15 percent of every purchase supports the African Academy of Fashion, which Mama P and Tamburai also run. The academy has trained more than 1,000 women, with approximately 60 percent moving into employment or other income-generating opportunities.
The Pacific Place storefront, where this discovery happened, came later through Seattle Restored, a program that gives local makers temporary storefronts to test physical retail before committing to a full lease. The pop-up had already told Tamburai a lot. She knew what stopped people, what pulled them in, and which pieces sparked questions. The beadwork near the front was drawing attention. Customers wanted to know about the fabrics, the makers, and the stories behind the work. The size of the store had opened up ideas she had not planned for, too: exhibitions, workshops, screenings, seating, refreshments, artist features, and community events.
Tamburai knew the shop could become more than a place to display products. She wanted people to stay, learn, gather, and connect more deeply with the work. She also believed the storefront could communicate the ONEOFEACH story more clearly through an experience that felt like an exhibition but was still premium, contemporary, and welcoming. The question was how to translate such a layered story without overwhelming the space.
What she needed was not more inspiration. She needed a way to bring those ideas into focus.
That is where our discovery work began.
We started with what Tamburai had learned
Discovery was not about walking into the shop and pointing out what was wrong. It was about understanding the experience Tamburai had already had inside the space.
We talked about the areas she liked, the parts that felt unfinished, and the moments when customers seemed most engaged. Which products naturally pulled people in. Where the store felt too open. How the current seating was actually being used. What she wished customers would do more of once they walked in.
Those observations mattered because they gave us something more useful than assumptions. We were not designing for an imaginary customer journey. We were starting with months of real behavior inside the shop.
We separated the goals from the solutions
Tamburai had plenty of ideas, which is often where a project like this starts. More seating. Drinks. A projection wall. Workshops. An exhibition. Better storytelling. Space for apparel. Stronger displays for the special pieces.
All of those ideas were useful, but discovery was not the moment to decide where each one would go or what it should look like. First, we needed to understand the goal behind each request. More seating, it turned out, was really about making customers comfortable enough to stay longer. The projection wall would support events and give the room a more immersive feel. Gallery-like displays would give the products room to breathe so customers could better understand their value. Workshops and exhibitions were how the store would connect to a bigger creative community.
Once the goals were clear, we could measure every later decision against them.
A wishlist can sound like a design direction, but each request is often standing in for something else. “More seating” may really mean wanting people to stay longer. Getting clear on the actual goal is what helps prevent expensive layout mistakes later.
We defined how the shop should feel
One of the clearest things Tamburai said during the visit was that she wanted the shop to feel more intimate.
The store has generous square footage, which gives ONEOFEACH room to experiment, but it can also make the experience feel exposed when every activity happens in the same large room. Tamburai wanted people to feel comfortable sitting down with a drink, talking about a piece, attending an event, or learning about an artist without feeling like they were in the way. She wanted browsing to be able to turn into conversation and a visit to become more than a transaction.
She also wanted the atmosphere to feel premium, contemporary, and welcoming without losing what made it feel like ONEOFEACH. The products needed room and context to feel special, but the space could not tip into cold or overly formal.
We clarified what the space needed to support
The conversation kept returning to the other roles the storefront could play.
Tamburai was planning a grand opening and an exhibition with an artist from South Africa. She wanted room for beadwork classes and other workshops, along with screenings, refreshments, and future collaborations connected to the African Academy of Fashion. She also wanted the brand story, including the materials, makers, cultural connections, and social impact, to be something customers could encounter on their own without needing to ask the right question first.
By the end of discovery, it was clear the shop needed to support shopping, storytelling, gathering, teaching, exhibitions, and events. The next phase was figuring out how those functions could coexist without competing with one another or crowding the space.
The brief that came out of discovery
By the end of the visit, the ideas were no longer a loose collection of possibilities.
We had a clear brief for the next phase of the shop: create a more intimate, gallery-like retail experience that encouraged customers to stay longer, made the brand story easier to encounter, and supported shopping, conversation, workshops, exhibitions, screenings, and community events.
That brief became the foundation for every design decision that followed.
Not a furniture list. Not a paint palette. Not yet a floor plan. A clear understanding of what the space needed to do and how Tamburai wanted people to feel inside it.
My next step was to turn that brief into a spatial design strategy: how customers would enter, move through the shop, encounter the products, pause, gather, and complete their visit. Then I would test those needs through more than one possible layout.
That is where Part 2 begins.
If you're sitting on a list like Tamburai's, with plenty of ideas but no clear order of operations, that is exactly the gap a Space Audit is built to close.
A midbloom Space Audit turns what you are noticing in your shop into clear, practical priorities for what to address first.